Change of Heart
by AyakoNoChou
Summary: Women should keep their emotions under control then and now. And with the intervention of an onmyoji a modern woman finds herself in Heian Japan where love, lust and friendship are all different. There her life is changed, bringing new love. Oneshot.


**A/N:** This was written as a contrast between Love, Loyalty, and Friendship, in Genji's world (Heian era Japan) and today (in America). It centers mainly around an OC, but does pull in Genji characters, so I figure it fits here...

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Time after time again I have been told that I need to control my emotions better. I was yelling at my mother when she told me, right as I got hit by the car. It was my fault, I ran out into the road.

If, at that time, you told me spirits, or reincarnation, existed, I would have laughed in your face. Now, however, is a completely different story.

I awoke on a hardwood floor. Above me was a man in white robes, waving a fan over me and whispering a chant. He stopped as soon as I opened my eyes, as if that was the specific time where the last word of his chant was to be said.

"Onee-sama!" I heard a woman gasp, and sat up; looking at her, realizing at that time that she was speaking a language different than my own, but that I understood it perfectly.

I frowned, looking down at myself. I wore robes similar to those worn by the lady who gasped. My hands were pale, much paler than they had been before the accident.

"Welcome to Heian Kyo," the man spoke. I turned to face him, my eyes wide with shock. Heian Kyo, the Heian Era in Japan, was way before my time. I am an American. I live in the year 2009, in a city called Pittsburgh.

The man in white whisked the others away, and then sat down across from me. "I told her this would happen," he spoke, a wry smile tugging at his lips. "You are her sister, and died a few days ago. She wanted you back, and I brought you back using a very powerful art. But, before I brought you back, you had already reincarnated into your next life."

I shook my head, disbelieving. This was a nightmare. However, I soon found, even after going to sleep and waking up, I was still in this time, in this pale body, and in these thirteen layers of clothes. And, with no way to return to my world, I set off to try and join this world.

Beside me sat the woman I now knew as my little sister, Fujiwara no Michiko. Beside her sat her serving woman, who was playfully giving her hints as she wrote a poem. The poem, she explained, was a response to a morning after poem. She and her lover had spent the night together, and he had written her a ritual letter, and she was replying. This, she said, was the second night in a row that they spent together, and tonight they would marry.

How could she trust him so! I may not know her well, but she is my little sister after all, and that gives me enough right to worry over her. If I were to sleep with a man three nights in a row there is no way he would marry me just like that! He would not want to take care of me or even love me; he would be in it for my body. And what is worse is that she has never even seen his face, nor him hers. He had fallen for her because of her poetry! Most of which was written with the help of her serving women if not entirely by them… And he was in love with her biwa playing. In the morning they would see each other, and what if he was not handsome? Or worse, what if he no longer liked her when he saw her? I mean, even in their prior two nights he had never even clearly seen her naked! All his "love" would disappear and he would leave her to be damaged goods.

I tried to explain these worries to her earlier and she laughed.

"The naked body is disgusting, something to be hidden and not seen. No man or women could ever like another's body. You are too distrustful. Men are not so disloyal as to marry you and forget about you. No, even if he does not like me, he will not abandon me. He will remember me and his obligation to me, and still send gifts."

Her woman asked me when the last time I had spent my night with a man was. When I responded never a look of shock and horror crossed her face. My own serving woman began to immediately tell me I needed to do that.

Apparently, in this place, being a virgin for too long is bad. Furthermore, it is perfectly acceptable to have sex with other men before your husband. Your husband who may or may not have many wives…

"But how can you really love him if you have never seen him? You have only heard his voice and read his poetry, and been lulled by his flute playing. What if you and he are not close?" I pressed again.

"He will care for me. He will make sure I am never starving. I already know that I will always be closer to my women than to him. My heart flutters when they do something unexpected for me. He will never be what they are to me. My first husband I only see every now and again when he visits. I will hope I see this man more, but it matters not…"

"Look, kid, you are supposed to be closer to your husband than to these women who you have these romantic friendships going on with," I bluntly informed her. "If you keep telling your women your heart flutters around them people will think you are a lesbian too. And why is your lady telling you what to write? If your lover knew that he'd kill you for it! He wants your words, not your friend's. I mean, he loves you, not her! And, because he 'loves' you, he wants you to be with him, not your lesbian lover."

Actually, I was not really sure which one of them he loved. I mean, if her serving woman was writing for her… maybe she was playing and talking for her too? And men in this time did seem to sleep around a lot…

My sister looked confused. Apparently the term lesbian did not exist in this time period. I missed Nikki, my home dog. I missed my black friends, with their slang and bluntness that these people didn't understand. And, most of all, I missed Mike, my fiancé. Mike would never cheat on me. His loyalty to me was strong. I would never have to worry about him taking another wife or liking anyone better than me. He would marry me, in a church, in front of my family and friends, and vow his loyalty to me eternally. I would be the person he was closest too. And Mike would like and appreciate my body that I had worked so hard to shape through diet and exercise when we had sex for the first time, after I was married.

Okay, that was a personal choice, the sex after marriage. Still, if I was like the girls that did it out of marriage, I would be called a slut. And I would probably get an STD. The only real plus side to women having sex here in Heian Kyo was the lack of STDs. And possibly the lack of name calling.

"If only she was a man, my heart would be full!"

I jumped in surprise at my serving woman's words. "Who?" I demanded. She looked at me reprovingly, reminding me yet again with her gaze that I was too rough for this world, that I needed to be gentler.

"Your sister," she finally spoke. "Alas these sleeves of mine are not long enough to contain my sorrow, oh how beautiful a man she would make."

If I wasn't freaked out before by this world, I definitely was now. She was saying my sister would make a nice man. She was talking about some gender bending fantasy with my sister! And worse yet, talking about it to me.

I scowled. I wanted to visit the man in white again. The people here called him an onmyoji, a magic wielder or sorcerer. I wanted to go to him and demand that he send me back to my time. However, I was stopped from visiting him by the next odd quirk of Heian Kyo; women are not allowed to go out in public as they please.

Before I knew it, the seasons had passed and I still had not seen him. And then the years passed…

"My dewy sleeves are not long enough, my sorrow of our parting overflowing. Alas, I have killed the evil cock…"

I smiled as I read the letter, admiring the dewy flower he had sent with it while doing so, and sent my gentlewoman to bring me ink while I selected a fine sheet of paper with little gold slivers decorating the page, above a depiction of morning grass.

"Then tonight let us not part in the morning, the cock no longer able to bring our parting, I long for the moment when I shall be wholly yours," I wrote back in kana letters, my ink fading at the end of the letter, my words hardly visible.

I summoned his page boy, who had been under my instruction served a rich breakfast, and gave my response to him, along with a gift of two splendid robes. "Koremitsu was it? Deliver it to him quickly, and if you bring me another I shall reward you even more handsomely," I instructed him, sliding the rolled up letter under my curtains to where he could take it.

I closed my eyes, imagining my lover's face. In the summer heat he would be wearing thin, white gauze robes, undone at the neck. The thought excited me, how beautiful my lover was!

He was not the first I slept with. I had slept with other men, usually only once or twice. It surprised me how we both knew how casual the affair was, and yet it became natural at the same time. Living surrounded by women the excitement of a night with a man was too tempting to turn away.

That is not to say that women weren't tempting though. Even recently I had allowed a woman or two into my bed. It was impossible to avoid romantic feelings and brief affairs with them. I saw my women day in and day out. I trusted no one more than them, and they all knew me almost as well as I knew myself and certainly much better than my lover would ever know me.

Ah, my lover! Even if my women knew me better, I could not help but love him more and more. No one in this world could ever match up to him, either in beauty or talent. I knew that I was not his first wife, that he had several others besides me. Still, I could not ignore how my heart pulled me to him. Even if I could only have him every now and again, that would be enough to fulfill my soul in this life time and the next!

And yet… the more I was away from him, the more I wanted to be with him. The more time I wanted him to spend with me.

"My lady, a page boy has come from your lover, bringing with him a letter and gift."

I turned to the woman and nodded. "Let him come and give them to me," I replied softly, a smile dancing on my lips. I positioned myself behind my standing curtain, opening a fan and holding it over my face, letting my eyes peer out from behind it. I watched as the shadow approached the curtain and kneeled before me, and then slid the letter beneath the curtain.

It was written on a crisp, pale pink sheet of paper with cherry blossoms depicted in gold. His writing was so faint that I could hardly read it, and his characters were even more beautiful than those in his last letter.

"My love," he wrote, "My every thought is occupied by you and what you may be doing now. I hope it is not too presumptuous, but I ask that you wear this simple gift that I have sent you today, that I may see you in it tonight.

_How my heart would soar, if she who I love would accept me once again tonight, that we may tie ourselves together even into the morning,_

My excitement for seeing you cannot be contained. May I ask that you soon join me in Nijō?"

I could not hold back the tears of joy that sprang to my eyes as I read the letter. I wiped them on my sleeve before they could mess up the make-up I had put on so delicately this morning after he had left.

I passed the letter to two of my gentlewomen. Both nodded approvingly at it and one ran out past the curtains to retrieve my gift. When she returned a set of robes were in her arms. I smiled and sent the page boy away, giving him a gold box filled with coins, snacks, and several new robes. "Tell him I will send my own page girl with my reply," I told him.

As soon as the boy left I slid off my own robes and my women assisted me in putting the new ones on. Gauzy layers of pink and white lined with crimson created a beautiful cherry blossom color that matched the paper he had sent his letter on.

I cried. At last I sat down and wrote on a piece of green paper with pink designs on top of it. "My heart is so full now, and even these new sleeves are already dewy, too short to hold all my tears, stemming from the joy you have brought me. If only the night could come quicker. I am yours forever, and will go wherever you please me to."

The day was painfully long, and even in my new robes thinking of him seemed to take forever to pass. And then finally the day turned into night, bringing with it my lover.

"Oh Genji," I sighed, as he slid past my curtains to me, holding me in a tight embrace.


End file.
